Kunstler, James H.
From CollabLandWiki
Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century
Chapter 1 'Who we are'
A Reasonable Hatred of Cities
The American Dream
The American Dream could be a manor in the park, which refers to a large home with some considerable amount of acerage.
American Dream is a false sense of security the people of the US have.
As this American Dream, there are many ways in which we are viewed by others outside our country in which do not prevail above our own views. We see another nation entirely different.
Americans get their homesickness cure by going to Disneyland.
After the war all the money for civic building projects went to the road industry, but people of course cannot live in these public buildings. They needed a place to stay.
We've done nothing but destroy America since the War.
You can't always tell if something will be unsuccessful unless you give it a shot
History is merciless and life is tragic.
Chapter 2 'The public realm and the common good'
Civil Life and Civic Art
An Uncivil Republic
Place, Race, and Politics
Can American Become Civilized?
Communication and Community have to work together to provide the civilized nation that is the want of each one of us.
Children today are too alienated from their local towns. They live their lives through the television. I know kids today that play video games over the internet against each other instead of going to their houses. Too much techonolgy could take away civility.
Sometimes the traditional way is the best.
Chapter 3 'Car crazy'
Before Cars-And After
The Ugly Numbers and Why We Don't Care About Them
Yea whats with the numbers
Here Come the Techno Follies
ISTEA
The End of the Road?
I do not think that roads will ever end unless of course we can beam things to where they need to go, like in Willy Wonka and the Chocholate Factory.
Where would we drive our cars if the roads were gone?
Go back to basics, think of what the car means to us...it seems that these things are taken for granted when before they meant so much.
Chapter 4 'Charm'
Why Lately We Prefer Unreality
Democracy Unbound
Charm, Sanity, and Grace
The House as Totem Object
A Window into Megaphysics
Reinstating Beauty and Values in General
A nation of Crybabies, Slackers, Deadbeats, Whores, Crooks
Diminishing humanity... value of technological progress
A window creates a relationship between the inside and outside
Form follows function
Urban Charm. We opt for fantasy.
Not knowing what we are doing to pollute the nation.
Chapter 5 'Creating Someplace'
A Short Course in the General Principles of Civic Art
Particulars
Getting the Rules Changes
Throw zoning laws away
Basic manual of instructions
Cul-de-sacs are strongly discouraged
Bold arguments
Reinvention of civic design is more prevalent to today than 300 some years back
NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard)
BANANAs (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)
Chapter 6 'Beyond Seaside'
Ground Zero -cities and towns occupy the best sites... geographic conditions
An Exemplary Project: Downcity Providence
Suburbia Invades the Central City
Miracle in the Short North
A World-Beatin' Development
A Debacle in Brooklyn
Forgotten New England, or New England Forgotten
Rehabilitating Main Street
Tribal Warfare
The Greenfields of Development
Doing it all Wrong
Movement spawned from controversy, political backbiting, and animadversion.
under-use of urban property
synchronicity
We have indeed become very abstract people
The best sites are already taken.
Quality is a commodity in short supply.
Livable City VS. Utopia
"Burn on, big river, burn on......"
Chapter 7 A Mercifully Brief Chapter on a Frightening, Tedious, But Important Subject
Property Taxes: taxing the land rather than the buildings
Site Value in perspective to cities and towns
Supply and Demand
Rise of Industrial Capitalism
Distressed Cities of America
Dense Downtown Core
Restoring the economic health of our ailing towns and cities- no smoke, no mirrors, no voodoo.
Chapter 8 Remodeling Hell
Connection from Biology to Planning
High Standard of Living and how it relates to the idea that we have in mind
Losing Identity
No good models for traditional planning
"Missionaries to the design professions and the building trades trumpeting the rediscovery of civic art and its implications for some of the nations most depressing social problems."
Crusader for the town. Feeling of the town of each person results in the same thing.
Reviving the usual sterile suburban housing tract.
Do as you are told, you need to change the instructions
Chapter 9 A City in the Country
A park across the street from a park.
Civic death
"Functionally irrelevant or too ugly and forbidden to walk on."
Nothing of value was built out of Urban Renewal
Urban Sprawl = bad design in Kunstler's eyes
Historical should be revitalized
Chapter 10 Farmer
A Looming National Catastrophe
Mechanized Farming
Topsoil Erosion
Chemical Fertilizers
Organic Farming
Chapter 11 My Home Town: A Reconsideration
Walkability
Suburbia= where money meant nothing
Entertainment including walking
America is now thoroughly urbanized
Grid of streets
Wide sidwalks
Local small entrepreneurs
Street level shops
Commercial Niche's
Cultural Districts
Chapter 12 Coda: What I Live For
The world is full of terrible places where life is everything.
Ancestors and Holidays
Rather robust notions about right and wrong (Kunstler does).
Enjoying writing, doesn't need anything.
